The Harpeth River System

 

Edition 1. Issue 10.                             September 2022

The Harpeth River System As a resident of Williamson County and Stephens Valley, the word “Harpeth” is something we encounter many times each day. Harpeth is mostly rooted in the name of the river system that we interact with daily. The Harpeth River rises in western Rutherford County where runoff from Versailles hill accumulates. From there it runs about 120 miles before emptying into the Cumberland River near Ashland City. Before joining the Cumberland, the river passes through a number of significant historical features, like the “Narrows of the Harpeth” where Montgomery Bell built a complex feature to power his ironworks on the site. A future issue of The Valleyist will expand on this. According to Wikipedia.org, the source of the name is not really known. Some think it is from the French explorer Bernard De La Harpe, who came to the area looking for information about the territory which was claimed by France in the early 1700s. There are those who think the name came from America’s first known serial killers, the Harpe brothers. Another theory is that it sprang from the antediluvian love story of Hilpa, Harpath and Shalum. In the story, Harpath comes to an untimely end drowning in a river as he attempted to cross it, and some think that our Harpeth was the river. Whatever the source, the number of businesses, streets, and associations in the area using Harpeth in its name is astounding. Tom T. Hall even wrote a song, modifying Harpeth to Harper in the hit by Jeannie C. Riley – Harper Valley PTA, which was inspired by Harpeth Valley Elementary in Bellevue! Regardless of the heritage of its name, the Harper River System is important to us. We either cross the Harpeth, or one of its major tributaries – the West Harpeth, the Little Harpeth, or the South Harpeth, every time we leave Stephens Valley. Together, these major tributary streams are 1,000 miles long. This whole river system is un-impounded. That means there are no dams along the Harpeth River system, so it cannot be controlled to prevent flooding. It is the second largest river system in Tennessee to remain un-impounded. When flooding rains occurs in our area, the Harpeth often escapes its banks and becomes a serious impediment to our personal transportation, as the Harpeth, and its tributaries, are nearly everywhere in our corner of Tennessee. We are very lucky to have the beauty of the Harpeth River system surrounding us, but in several ways, the river is not so lucky to have us. Since the river runs right through the explosively growing city of Franklin, and meanders throughout the similarly growing Williamson County, the Harpeth faces serious challenges. The booming Franklin population extracts its drinking water from the Harpeth, and its flow is not sufficient to provide present needs, much less future demand for water (luckily, Harpeth Valley Utility District does not withdraw water from the Harpeth for our needs in SV, and we will do a future article on that). Not far downstream from where Franklin extracts water from the river, they dump the effluent from their sewage treatment plant back into the Harpeth. That is upstream from Stephens Valley. As a result, all too often in the summer low flow periods, the Harpeth fails to meet water quality standards for recreational use and for fish and aquatic life. Nearly 60% of the main river is often impaired, as well as 37% of those 1,000 miles of tributary streams. The main cause of the river’s impairment is reduced dissolved oxygen due to the high amount of nutrients – especially phosphorus – discharged into the river, encouraging the growth of oxygen depleting algal blooms. Franklin’s sewage treatment is likely the main offender here. The nutrient output of that facility is enormous, and in some summer months, the sewage plant effluent makes up 33% of the total flow in the river in the vicinity of Stephens Valley! This river situation is not caused by the SV development, and our neighborhood might well be functioning to reduce phosphorous contribution to the river system. Even though many of us are guilty of adding phosphorous fertilizer to our lawns in pursuit of extra-green beauty, and even though a lot of that phosphorous washes out and heads toward the river via Trace Creek, there are elements to the design of SV that likely cancel out much of that phosphorous. Concrete is something we have a lot of in SV. Concrete contains calcium, which has been proven to bind phosphorous. Our sidewalks, driveways, and especially our alleys which are paved with crushed limestone and concrete pavers, all act to filter the runoff and capture some phosphorous. So, though we are not particularly proactive in improving the Harpeth River system, we are passively acting to protect it. We should all be thankful for that.  William Ray - Author